WEBVTT - What was Gopher? 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:07.240 Get in text with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:14.080 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.920 I'm your host Jonathan Strickland, senior writer for how stuff 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.480 works dot com. And today's episode comes to us courtesy 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:26.759 of a little listener mail. And you guys have been 0:00:27.080 --> 0:00:30.320 crushing it, sending tons of suggestions my way, and I 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.680 just want to say I really appreciate it. So remember, 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.360 if you have a suggestion for a topic I should cover, 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.559 send me the message. The emails tech Stuff at how 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.159 stuff works dot com. But this week's listener mail episode 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.760 comes to us from Ryan, who says, please do an 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:49.280 episode about the Gopher protocol, such a different approach to 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.959 utilizing the Internet that no one knows today. And so 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.600 today we're gonna walk back in Internet history and learn 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.160 all about the Gopher protocol. But first it kind of 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.760 benefits us to remember what exactly the Internet is. And 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.399 trust me, this is important in the grand scheme of things. 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:11.240 But I'll be nice and high level and brief about it. 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.520 So when you get down to it, the Internet is 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.119 essentially just a bunch of computing devices that are all 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:18.760 connected to each other, and that's it. Really. There's a 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.160 lot of infrastructure there that allows this to happen. But 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.120 ultimately it's a bunch of computers that are talking to 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:27.240 each other. It's a network of networks using various types 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:31.720 of connections and protocols to send and receive communications. But 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.800 when you just break it down to its simplest of terms, 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:39.120 you're really talking about a bunch of interconnected machines. Now, 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:44.680 broadly speaking, we can classify most of these machines as 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:48.960 either servers or clients. Now there are other machines as well, 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.720 like routers and switches and stuff, but I'm mostly talking 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:55.560 about the devices that are directly communicating with each other 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:59.920 rather than the ones that facilitate that communication. So as 0:02:00.000 --> 0:02:02.640 a server, well, it does exactly what it sounds like. 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:08.560 It does. It serves information. Clients request information. So your 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.480 smartphone or your computer or your tablet that you use 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.560 to serve the Internet or read email or whatever it 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.880 is you do online, that is a client. The servers 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:21.320 are the machines that contain all the information you're looking 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.880 at and serve it up to you. And the Internet 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.079 is older than the World Wide Web. A lot of people, 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:31.880 probably not as many today as we're around. For like 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:34.520 the late nineties, but a lot of people would equate 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.040 the World Wide Web with the Internet, like the two 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.880 are synonymous, and that's not really true. The Web is 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:42.560 really just a layer on top of the Internet. It's 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:45.160 it's an interface that makes it easy to access and 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.680 interact with information. But it's just one part of the Internet. 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.320 And before it came along, people were facing a bit 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:58.000 of a challenge. So imagine you've got this network of networks. 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:03.760 Information is on thousands of servers around the world. You 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:07.840 want to get access to some specific information, like a 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:12.000 very particular file. There's one file that you want to get, 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:16.040 But how do you track down that file? How do 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.120 you know which computer out there in this vast network 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.000 of networks, How do you know which one actually holds 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.040 the file you want. You can't just scream out, hey, 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.520 I need this one text file. You've got to know 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.120 where it is in order to retrieve it. So the 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.480 way this would work normally is that you'd send a 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.559 message from your computer across the network to the specific 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:44.600 server in question. So ideally you would know what computer 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.080 hosts your file, and you would use some method of 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:53.000 connecting to that server. Maybe you're using tell neet, maybe 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:57.120 you're using FTP file transfer protocol, but you're using something 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.280 to send a message to that server, and in return, 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.320 the server responds to you, and then you request access 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.600 to that file. It's really just that the message you 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.120 send is just a request for information stored on that server. 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:14.960 And if you have access authorized access to the information. 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:16.919 In other words, if it's not protected by like a 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.239 password or something that you don't have, the server would 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.520 send that information back across the internet to you. But 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:27.880 what happens if you don't know which computer holds the 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:31.360 information you want? How do you get access to it? 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:33.960 Back in the old days, this would be kind of 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:37.920 like picking up a telephone to call somebody. Let's say 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.640 you're trying to call me, only you don't have my 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:42.760 phone number. I never gave it to you. I'm not 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.400 listed anywhere, So how do you call me? There are 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.000 millions of phone numbers out there. If you knew my 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.039 phone number, everything would be just fine because you could 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.240 just dial it directly. But since you don't know my 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.640 number and there's no directory to consult, you're faced with 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.880 a nearly impossible task. What do you do? Just start 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.360 randomly hitting button until the right person picks up. Well, 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.120 that was the problem facing the Internet. It arose because 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.160 the network became more complicated. Just as in the old 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:13.040 days you might have very few telephones in a single town. 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.039 Like I'm talking the real old days. When telephones first 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.680 became popular, you didn't need to worry about phone numbers. 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:21.680 Maybe three people in town had a phone. These days 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.440 you gotta worry about it because millions of people iPhones. Well, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.400 same thing was true with the network of networks. As 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:30.680 more computers came online, as more systems joined the Internet, 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.560 it became more difficult to track very specific stuff down. 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:40.040 So before the Internet, there was a sort of a precursor, 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:45.000 not really the Internet. Before there was an Internet, but 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.200 it was a system of networked computers called ARPA Net 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.880 now the ARPA Net. That was a project from the 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.200 Department of Defense in the United States, and it was 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.800 something that that required a bunch of computers scientists to 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:06.040 sit down and work out protocols. Uh. It was essentially 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:10.000 a big, but relatively simple network of computers. Now I 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.480 say simple because if you look at the Internet by 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:17.560 comparison as a network of networks, it is far more 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.840 complex than what Urbanet was. But I am not casting 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:26.960 aspersions on our bonnet. It was still incredibly sophisticated, particularly 0:06:27.080 --> 0:06:31.960 for its time. It allowed people working on different computers 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.120 that used different operating systems, different languages, the ability to 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:41.400 communicate with each other. And that's phenomenal because usually you 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.240 know this, these are like computers that if you were 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:45.359 to connect directly to one another, they would not be 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.640 able to communicate with each other. They were fundamentally different. 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.760 So the designers of the Urbanet had to figure out 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:55.000 a set of rules that all these different types of 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.280 computers could follow in order to exchange information with one another. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.880 So that that required a lot of work to create 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:05.960 these protocols or sets of rules to facilitate communication. And 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.159 I've talked about ARBONETT before. If you want to hear 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.400 a lot more about it, you can track down the 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.040 classic episode. It originally published in two thousand and twelve. 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:19.480 It was titled Happy Fathers of the Internet Day and 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.600 then it Chris Pallette and I talked a lot about 0:07:22.680 --> 0:07:27.120 the people who designed the various protocols that allow Internet 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:31.720 communication to happen. Well. Anyway, two of the protocols in 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:36.120 question during the days of Arbonet were the Transmission Control 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:41.600 Protocol or TCP developed in ninety and the Internet Protocol 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:45.520 or i P, in ninety eight. These are almost always 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.520 grouped together whenever anyone talks about Internet protocols, they'll say 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:52.080 t C P i P, But they're technically two different 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:57.520 sets of rules that together uh end up guiding the 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:01.000 computers on how to communicate across this network of networks. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.160 These are the rules that gave Arponette that ability to 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:09.680 create global communication across various different computers. The two protocols 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:14.800 were officially adopted by Arpanett in Night three, So while 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.320 they were developed in the seventies, it wasn't officially adopted 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.840 until Night three. Now, they were being used before that, 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:26.720 but you know, Arpanet was a government thing, and just 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:32.360 like you would suspect it moves super fast because it's government. Well, 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.920 the following year a lot of things happen. We got 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:41.839 that really killer Apple Mac commercial that was like the 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.439 Orwellian nineteen eighty four that was phenomenal. But also Sun 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:51.320 micro Systems unveiled a system called the Network Filing System 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:55.559 or NFS that was sort of like a file directory 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.480 and storage system for networked computers running on a heterogeneous 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.760 Unix environment. So you had to have a bunch of 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:08.760 computers running the same Unix implementation essentially, or same version 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.360 I guess I should say not implementation, but the same 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.839 version of Unix across all these different machines. And it 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.000 was kind of like your basic file management system you'd 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:20.680 have on a personal computer. So if you've ever used 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.640 a computer that had a variation of this, like Windows 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:29.320 file Explorer is a good example. You typically have a 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:33.040 hierarchy of files. You'll have like a top level selection 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.360 of files. If you go into one of those, you 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:40.040 might see folders, like subfolders underneath that main heading. Go 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.840 into that one, you'll see more subfolders, maybe some files, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.560 that kind of stuff. Well, it was essentially that, but 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.400 for an entire network of computers. So you can share 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:53.400 information between different computers on the system by saving files 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.320 to this network drive, something that's very familiar to most 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.080 of us today, but back then was really new. And 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:05.479 then obviously you could retrieve files from the appropriate directory 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:10.280 on that same system. Also, in a team over at 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:15.080 Carnegie Melon University released the Andrew File System or a 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.480 f S now. Originally, the a f S provided Carnegie 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:23.000 Melon students a campus wide file directory system and later on, 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:26.600 a company called trans Arc sort of spun off and 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.760 turned this into a commercial product. Now, these file systems 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.079 allowed users to access files on other computers, but they 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:39.200 also came with a really steep learning curve. If you 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:44.199 weren't particularly computer savvy, it was really challenging to navigate 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.000 through these file directories. It would be kind of like 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.760 taking someone to a computer and it has all line commands, 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.520 and the person had never really worked with a line 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.160 command interface. They only worked with graphics by line command. 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.240 I mean, you have to type in the command and 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:04.000 file names you want in order to access stuff. Well, 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:06.120 if that's what you've been doing the whole time, it's 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.240 not so bad. You start to pick up on it. 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.160 Even as new systems are brought on, you can kind 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.120 of adapt to it pretty quickly because you already have 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.400 that basic level of knowledge. But for someone brand new 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.720 to computers, it was really intimidating. It felt like you 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:25.160 needed to have a lexicon of different commands at your 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:27.240 disposal all the time, and a lot of people would 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.600 have to use cheat sheets and take a look at 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.160 those constantly so that they can figure out just how 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:37.200 to navigate a computer. It wasn't very user friendly, and 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.640 it was really hard to find what you were looking 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.440 for if you didn't already know where to start from 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.280 the beginning. The trick with filing systems is that you 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:49.360 have to understand the organizational strategy. So not only do 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.200 you have to understand the language to navigate the system, 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.800 you also have to understand the person who set it 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:58.640 up in the first place. So there's there's a bit 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.640 of machine savvy you have to have, but there's also 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.000 how well do I know the person who set up 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.680 this filing system, and how does that person's brain work, 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:09.760 Because maybe they'll set things up in a different way 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:12.480 then I would set it up, and if I were 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:14.960 to try and navigate using my common sense, I might 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.040 find it frustrating. So here's an example of what I mean. 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.079 Back in the day, I used to organize all of 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:25.440 my DVDs by genre and then by alphabetical order by title. 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.240 So at all my action films in one place, I 0:12:29.280 --> 0:12:31.840 had all my horror movies in another place, all my 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.480 Tim Curry movies were together, all that kind of thing. 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.199 You know, Tim Curry is a genre unto himself National treasure. 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.560 But if you didn't know that, I did that and 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.960 you didn't know where one section began or ended, you 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.320 could have trouble finding a specific title. Maybe you would 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.200 have had a totally different approach. Maybe you would have 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.840 organized everything alphabetically from the start, so it didn't matter 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.600 what genres and you would know, all right, well, the 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:58.400 title I'm looking for it starts with a D, so 0:12:58.440 --> 0:12:59.600 I need to find the D S and it's going 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.319 to be there. Or maybe you would even have a 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:07.800 more crazy organizational strategy, maybe you would organize everything chronologically 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:11.920 by release date, which would confound everyone but the geekiest 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.520 of film buffs. The point is that these file systems 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.640 back in the day, with these network drives, they weren't 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:21.880 always intuitive. Even if you weren't immediately put off by 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:24.480 the interface, you might still not be able to find 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:29.079 what you're looking for. Now. Later still came alan em 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:34.040 Taj's Archie tool, and he was a University of Montreal 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.720 employee student. You know, he had gone from one to 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.319 the other really when he when he invented this tool 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.040 to search for files on the Internet that would be 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:47.840 transferred via f t P file transfer protocol. So instead 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:50.320 of requiring the user to know a direct path, you 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.559 just had to know the name of the file, how 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:57.880 was the file named? Now, that still isn't ideal, because 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.720 I'm sure you've encountered files that had weird or nonintuitive 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.880 names that may have had nothing to do with what 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.679 the file actually was about. So you had to know 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.640 precisely how the file was named or else it really 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:12.520 didn't do you any good. But at least it didn't 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:16.120 require you to also know the full path name of 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.440 where a file was, and it allowed you to actually 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.680 do a search across the internet. Now, once the Web 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.000 came along, and I'll talk a lot more about the 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.400 World Wide Web later on in this episode, and once 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:34.680 programmers began building search engines, this probably became less difficult. Right. 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.760 Search engines started to make things much easier for people. 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.880 The Web made navigation more intuitive. It made it more 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:44.000 accessible to people who weren't experienced with computers or had 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.840 inside knowledge of directory organization. But in those in between 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:52.800 times before the web, but after the Internet came online, 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:59.920 that's when Gopher emerged. Now, there were several developers behind 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.400 go for really six people in total, and one of 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.400 the more important ones I shouldn't even say it that way, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.720 one of the leads I should say, because all six 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.200 were important. Uh. One of the leads was Mark McHale, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.640 and Michael attended the University of Minnesota. Actually they were 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.520 all part of the University of Minnesota, but he had 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.360 attended as a student, earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.640 in nineteen seventy nine. But while he earned his degree 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:26.760 in chemistry, he would actually go on to join the 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:31.160 campus micro computer Center as a programmer, and by the 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.120 late nineteen eighties he was leading a team of programmers 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.640 and together they built an email client called pop mail, 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.200 first for the Macintosh computer and then later on for 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:46.120 the PC platform. The POP in pop mail stands for 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:50.360 post Office Protocol. So the way it worked was that 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.120 you had a server that would kind of act like 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.600 a virtual post office. You would whenever you were checking 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.920 email or sending email, it would involve a virtual visit 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.320 to this post office. You could drop off and receive 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.880 mail there. So if you want to send a message 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:10.480 through your popmail client, the client, as in your computer 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.040 the workstation you are using, would relay the message through 0:16:14.120 --> 0:16:17.880 the post office server, which would then direct the message 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:23.000 onto your destination. When retreating messages, you would actually be 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:28.560 going to this popmail server to pull the emails off 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.400 of it in order to read them. So they were 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.280 the ones who developed this, and it was a very 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.920 popular type of way of getting hold of email. The 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.800 next big project that this team tackled was creating an 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.800 interface for navigating the university's local network. So the question was, 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.600 how can we find whatever we're looking for? How do 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.800 we organize all this information we have in a way 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:57.160 that makes sense because they could see that the Internet 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.000 was creating this incredible opportunity to share information, but it 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:05.120 was getting increasingly difficult to find stuff and to organize 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:08.920 stuff properly because there were more and more computers coming 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.840 onto the system and it just made things even more complicated. 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:19.560 So together Mikhail, Bob Alberti, far Aud, Ankle, Saria, Paul Linda, 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:23.400 and Daniel Torry began to work to develop a solution, 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.240 and as it turned out, their solution had applications far 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.680 beyond the campus they worked on. In fact, it would 0:17:30.680 --> 0:17:34.960 turn out their solution had applications outside of the campus 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.760 they worked on before it actually was implemented by the 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.880 campus itself. It would work across the Internet in general. 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.280 Now I'm gonna jump into what they did in just 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:49.399 a second. But before I do that, let's take a 0:17:49.480 --> 0:18:00.320 quick break to thank our sponsor. So the team got 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:04.240 to work in They knew that they wanted a system 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:08.000 that could organize information in an intuitive way, giving users 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:12.400 an opportunity to navigate the information they needed quickly. They 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.280 wanted it to be a client server system. This was 0:18:15.520 --> 0:18:19.880 really important to them. What they perhaps the biggest decision 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.280 they made, the most important one to them, was to 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:30.119 not go a centralized mainframe organizational strategy. They wanted to 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.240 get away from mainframe computers. They saw that the future 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.640 was in desktops. But desktop machines, especially in ninety one, 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:45.600 were slow, they had relatively limited capabilities, so whatever system 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:52.400 they created had to be optimized for these less powerful machines. 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.320 They also wanted to make this system scalable, with options 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:00.479 to have various departments register servers with a top level servers. 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.840 So in other words, you could have different departments having 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:08.160 their own networks, but have them linked to the main 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.280 network so that you can navigate throughout all of these 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:13.399 different systems. And that way, if you're connected to that 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.280 top level server, you could navigate to any lower department 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.199 through a master menu. They also wanted the tool to 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:22.800 be efficient and lightweight, meaning they didn't want to tax 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.760 those normal PCs and workstations. They didn't want a tool 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.880 that would move into Snail's pace, and that was one 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.560 of the reasons that they really focused on text based 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.520 communications because it's doesn't require a whole lot of data 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.520 to send text, and it meant that it could be 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:47.320 relatively fast and informative. They also decided that the server 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.359 would not retain states. Now that means that the server 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:53.320 wouldn't need to keep a record of all the different 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.080 information requests from multiple clients. Once a connection closed, the 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:00.359 state was white, and it would close the connect after 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:04.040 every transaction. Essentially, so together they worked on this tool 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:08.359 and they decided to call it Gopher. The name, by 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.320 the way, serves many purposes. For one, the mascot of 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.679 the University of Minnesota as the Golden Gopher, Minnesota is 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:20.520 the Gopher state. Also, the idea of a metaphorical Gopher 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.119 appealed to them. Gophers tunnel, and in a way, the 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:30.080 Gopher protocol kind of tunnels through networks. They also started 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:33.520 to refer to the networks that we're using Gopher as 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.920 Gopher space. And finally, gophers also the term for someone 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.880 who runs errands and fetches things because the gopher will 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:49.080 gopher like coffee or you know, uh, you can gopher 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:53.360 snacks that kind of stuff. The Classic Muppet Show series 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.600 had Scooter who was a gopher. Uh. There were a 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.280 lot of jokes about that, about how Scooter was a 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:05.959 gopher by job, but he wasn't a gopher by critter, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:10.879 like he was not the actual animal gopher. Anyway, here's 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:15.320 the weird thing. So the team knew they were onto 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.720 something when they designed Gopher, but it didn't get a 0:21:18.760 --> 0:21:21.400 lot of traction right out of the gate despite its utility, 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.480 because the University of Minnesota they just didn't see how 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.000 this would be useful. They didn't see the value in it, 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.359 so they didn't really put any support behind it, and 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:34.199 they didn't implement it at all. So the team decided 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.280 to sidestep all that red tape, and one of the 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:42.040 team members uploaded the software to an FTP server and 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.320 then posted a message on an Internet mailing list saying, hey, guys, 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.240 we developed this kind of cool tool. We think it 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.800 is a great way to organize information on networks and 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.000 allow people to find stuff. Give it a try. So 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:57.479 people began to download it and put use and not 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.119 long after that it started to take off a lot 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:03.960 of places we're using it, and they decided that it 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.560 made a whole lot of sense, and eventually the University 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:10.679 of Minnesota administration relented and implemented Gopher as well on 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:14.879 their campus. Now, let's go ahead and talk about Gopher 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.000 implementations and what it was actually like. So there were 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.359 two main ways you could interact with Gopher. One of 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:25.160 them was to install software on your computer. And uh, 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:28.720 this is looking at interacting with Gopher as a user 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.159 as opposed to as an administrator. So you want to 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:34.719 use Gopher, Well, one thing you could do is install 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.679 software on your computer, and this was a client side 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.399 Gopher application, which really is not that different from a 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:46.679 web browser like Firefox or Chrome or Safari. It's essentially 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:49.400 a similar thing. It's a it's a program that runs 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.600 on your computer that acts as the interface for this protocol. Uh. 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.280 Those are all clients side applications, just like the Gopher 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:58.480 one was. But you didn't have to do that. What 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:02.680 you could do instead is use a tell net application. 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:06.879 Telling Net was another old protocol that's still used in 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:11.680 some places. Uh tell net would allow you to virtually 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.919 log into another terminal, and you just had to have 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:19.320 the correct address, import number and everything in order to 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:23.119 tell Net into that that room. So you could use 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.760 tell neet to log onto a remote server and use 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:29.959 the server side Gopher client to access directories, and in 0:23:29.960 --> 0:23:32.360 that case, all the work is being done by the 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:36.080 server and you don't have to actually have a client 0:23:36.200 --> 0:23:40.119 based application on your side. The style of the Gopher 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:43.119 client really dependent upon its implementation. The team wanted to 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:47.040 make sure that it was it was customizable, but it 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:51.040 was always simple. It's always text based. It could be 0:23:51.080 --> 0:23:55.720 extremely simple where all you have our text options under 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.640 a menu, or it could have some very primitive kind 0:23:59.640 --> 0:24:04.200 of of graphic user interface elements in it. Graphic user 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:10.720 interface also known as gooey, but less less um what's 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:15.840 the right word, less impressive or extensive as what you 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:18.719 would find in the Worldwide Web later. And there were 0:24:18.720 --> 0:24:21.399 two worlds in the Gopher verse, the world the client 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:25.879 could see and the world the server worked with. So 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:30.640 on the server side, every item within a Gopher directory 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:34.080 would have certain elements to it, and that included a 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:38.520 client visible name, a selector, which was usually something that 0:24:39.440 --> 0:24:44.840